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Personnel

Rebecca has been the Executive Director since March, 1986. She manages the Fund from her home office (which moved in April, 1994.) She commutes to New England to attend Board and Executive Committee meetings. She has extensive experience as a business consultant and as a commercial bank loan officer for Barclays American. She was formerly a bank examiner for the State of Connecticut. Rebecca has also worked as a consensus process trainer and nonprofit advisor to many groups. These include her local food coop, an urban grocery store project, a symphony orchestra, an artist collective, and Dance New England. She has served on the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation, Opportunity Finance Network, Temple of Israel, the Wilmington YWCA, New Hanover County Human Relations Commission, WHQR public radio, and Tidal Creek Food Coop. She has a BA in economics from Trinity College and an MBA in finance. In 2013 Rebecca was inducted into the National Cooperative Business Hall of Fame. Rebecca sits on the Cooperative Fund's Board of Trustees.

As the Southeastern Loan and Outreach Officer Maggie visits current and potential borrowers, providing technical assistance, administration of the loan portfolio, and marketing the Fund in Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut and eastern Massachusetts. Maggie comes from over ten years of work with Boston non-profits, including the Mission Hill Health Movement, the Boston Collaborative for Food & Fitness, which addressed issues of food access and access to physical activity in low-income neighborhoods, and Mission Hill Main Streets, which engaged business owners and local residents in strengthening and improving the local commercial district. In the 1990s, she worked at Red Sun Press, a democratically-controlled commercial print shop in Jamaica Plain. Developing a lasting interest in community development, she left Red Sun to pursue a degree in Community Economic Development. Maggie currently serves on the board of the Back of the Hill Community Development Corporation and the Cooperative Development Institute. She is a member of the Boston Building Resources and four food coops. She holds a BA from UMass Boston in Studio Arts and a Master’s Degree in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University.

Lane joined the CFNE team in 2017 as a loan and outreach officer covering northern Vermont and New York state. After graduating from the University of Washington in 2012, Lane began diving into alternative finance as a collective member of Regenerative Finance and member leader with Resource Generation, and then working in microfinance at a CDFI in Vermont for two years. In addition to regenerative economics, Lane loves reading feminist speculative fiction, exploring the woods, and eating with friends.

Dorian visits current and potential borrowers, providing technical assistance, administration of the loan portfolio, and marketing the Fund in southwest New England. A CPA with almost 20 years in public accounting, including as a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, she has provided finance, audit, governance, and business advisory services to a variety of companies in industries as diverse as higher education and health services, manufacturing, transportation, and technology. She is the board president of River Valley Coop. Dorian developed a life-long passion for social change while in college working on environmental and renewable energy campaigns, and later while engaged in community organizing for a low-income and poor peoples' rights organization, and as a battered women’s shelter hotline volunteer and board member. Dorian obtained a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy from George Mason University, her MA in Philosophy from SUNY at Stony Brook, and concentrated accounting studies at the UMass Isenberg School of Management. She practices and teaches Taijiquan and Qigong.

Deborah joined the CFNE in January, 2017 and will visit current and potential borrowers, providing technical assistance, administration of the loan portfolio, and marketing the Fund in northeastern part of New England. A Maine native, Deborah has worked in bookkeeping/accounting for over 25 years. She helped found several food buying clubs and co-founded the then-largest CSA in the US in 1991. In the late 1980s and early 1990s she worked with the major U.S. organic certifiers to draft regulations for the Organic Foods Production Act. Returning to college in 1987, she was inspired by the cooperative movement and its values and has been involved with the movement ever since, including ongoing work with Cooperative Maine. She earned her B.A. from California State University, Northridge and her M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California, Irvine, in philosophy. Deborah is a member of the Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative, the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the NAACP, the Anthroposophical Society, University Credit Union, and is active in the Christian Community branch in Rockland.

As a program manager, Micha coordinates fundraising,and new program development for CFNE, including its Healthy Food Access project. Micha joined the coop movement as an Oberlin Student Cooperative Association member and later coordinated the development of Boston Community Cooperative’s first housing coop. He entered the Community Development Finance world as a portfolio assistant with the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation. Just before joining CFNE, Micha managed the U.S. Embassy’s Commissary in Lusaka, Zambia. He has a background in nonprofit financial management and community organizing, and holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College and an MS in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University. He has also participated in the Opportunity Finance Network's leadership training program.